


Mirroring

by Val Mora (valmora)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-05
Updated: 2010-06-05
Packaged: 2017-11-28 02:48:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/669383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valmora/pseuds/Val%20Mora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Through the eyes of humans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mirroring

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted [here](http://hetalia-kink.livejournal.com/10530.html?thread=16428066#t16428066) for [this prompt](http://hetalia-kink.livejournal.com/10530.html?thread=16341794#t16341794) at the kink meme, and kindexed [here](http://community.livejournal.com/hetalia_kindex/1005378.html).

**The Swedish Neighbors**

 

The doorbell rang just after Sofia had settled down with her book. She groaned, creaked her way to standing, and went to open the door. Just a little; she didn’t want too much heat escaping from the house.

“Merry early Christmas,” Tino said, brandishing a food container. “I brought cookies for you and Nils.”

“Oh, thank you. How kind.” It would have been better if he hadn’t brought them, because now she and Nils would have to lie about how they tasted. Maybe Berwald had baked them. “Did you bake these yourself?”

Tino nodded. Sofia’s stomach shriveled in fear, but the cookies were already in her hands.

“That’s very kind of you. Thank you. We’ll both enjoy them very much. I’ll give you the container back when we’re done, how’s that?”

“That’s fine! See you later!” He tramped off across the street back to his house.

Sofia took the cookies into the kitchen, where Nils was reading his newspaper. “Tino brought cookies.”

He winced. “Did Berwald bake them?”

“No. I asked.”

“....don’t they have tastebuds? Or is Berwald just so in love that he doesn’t notice?”

“Probably the latter.” She leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. “Remember all the kitchen disasters that we had when we were newlyweds?”

He laughed and took her hand. “More than when we were just newlyweds. The bread...”

She touched his cheek, not a slap but pretending to be. “It wasn’t my fault that Kristina distracted me.”

“She’s our six-month-old granddaughter. It certainly isn’t her fault.”

“Mm, no, it’s yours,” Sofia sighed, resting her head on his shoulder. “Helping me with her mother.”

 

 

 

**The Finnish Neighbors**

 

Iida down the hall invited all the inhabitants of the fourth floor of the apartment building over to get stinking drunk on New Year’s. She didn’t actually say it like that, but she did say that if anyone threw up in any place other than the toilet she was going to be tearing eyeballs out.

So Aleksi watched how much he was drinking, because even if Iida didn’t mean it he didn’t want to have her mad at him.

Unfortunately, while everyone was really buzzed, which was nice, Tino’s partner Berwald was a little more than buzzed, and it was getting _kind of awkward_. Even if they were sitting in the corner while everyone else watched TV. What with the half-audible mumbling in Swedish and Tino giggling every so often and the pauses in the dialogue where everyone kind of looked terrified at each other and hoped that they were just kissing and not anything else but didn’t want to be scarred for life by looking.

Except for Iida, but then, she was weird like that.

It was pretty much a relief for everyone else when they went back to their apartment early. Everyone pretended not to notice that Tino’s hand wasn’t so much on Berwald’s back as groping his ass.

Aleksi put his head in his hands and decided it was time to get really stinking drunk so he wouldn’t wake up in the middle of the night to the sounds of them having sex on the other side of his bedroom wall.

 

 

 

**The Receptionist**

 

The rumor that Emilia had heard from the secretaries was that Tino Väinämöinen was some sort of cultural attaché, which made sense – he’d come to the office here in Helsinki every work day for three months last year, then had been gone for nine months. He was back, and adorable, and Emilia had a little crush on him.

Not so little, actually. He was really very cute, and so intelligent – she’d talked to him for an hour one Friday about how she was studying to get her Master’s in history, and it turned out that he was a bit of a history nut himself, which had been great fun. He knew a lot about the role of Finnish soldiers during the Thirty Years’ War, which she was researching for her thesis, and he’d given her some good sources that she’d never heard of before.

She was happy to see that he was back – he even greeted her by name!

On his second day back, while she was working to help him get his badge, she said, “So what were you doing the last nine months?”

“Well,” he said, “I went north to visit my brother and spent part of the winter there. None of what I do is really very interesting. I mean, I spend almost as much time in Stockholm as I do here in Finland.” He smiled, tilted his head to look at her. “What about you?”

“Same as last year,” she replied. “Still working on that thesis.”

“You’ll have to show me where you are in it,” he said. “I’m really curious to see what you’ve dug up.”

She nodded. “Say, do you want to get dinner sometime? Nothing fancy, just to chat.”

His face lit up. She’d thought that purple eyes weren’t real until she’d met him. “I’d love to, but I have to check my schedule to see when. Later this week sometime?”

“Sounds good,” she said, and he went inside the building.

Near the end of the day a man came into the lobby, nodded at her, and sat in one of the chairs. He stayed there for about five minutes as she got more and more worried. He wasn’t doing anything, just sitting there waiting with a small briefcase at his feet, glaring at the table in front of him.

Finally she asked, “Sir, can I help you?”

He shook his head.

“Well, I’m sorry, but I’ll have to ask you to-”

“Berwald!” Tino came into view from the hallway and walked over to the strange man, who stood and waited for him to come close before wrapping him in a hug that – okay, yeah. That was not a friend hug. That wasn’t even an _ex-boyfriend_ hug. That was an _I spent all day missing you_ hug. Emilia sighed. It was true what they said about the good ones, and this one was both.

Tino chattered happily at him in Swedish for a few seconds once the hug got a little less uncomfortable for Emilia to be in the same room as, then led him up to the desk and switched into English.

“Berwald, this is Emilia Koskinen. She’s going to school to get her Master’s in history and is looking at Finnish units during the Thirty Years’ War, isn’t that great? Emilia, this is my partner, Berwald Oxenstierna.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said. He mumbled something – maybe he wasn’t very confident of his English? – and blushed a little, and shook her hand.

 

 

 

**The Parent**

 

Martin waved at Anna from across the frozen surface of the pond, and she waved back and watched him skate on. In the seat beside her, a frowning man only a little younger than her nursed a cup of coffee and watched the skaters.

A boy ran himself into he guard barrier at the edge of the skating area and called out in English, “Dad, Dad, were you watching? Were you watching?”

“Y’ didn’t fall,” the man next to her said, and his frown lightened. “We'll have t’ get you skiin' next.”

“Can I do biathlons like Papa, then?”

“...ask again after you've learned how t’ shoot.”

Another young man, shorter than the one next to Anna, stopped next to the barrier, laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You’re doing very well,” he told the boy, and then, in Finland Swedish, “Dear God, you have coffee. I’m requisitioning it.” He stretched a hand over the barrier and took the cup, sipped at it, and handed it back. He tapped the boy on the top of his hatted head and said, switching back to English, “Keep going.”

The boy sighed and let go of the barrier to skate off just as Martin breezed past him.

Anna waited a moment, her stomach a little bit knotted, then asked, “Your son?” Her benchmate didn’t look old enough to have a biological son that age, although if she’d read those three right he wouldn’t have a wife anyway...

He grunted. “M’ cousin, but his family cant take care of ’im. He’s livin’ with me ‘n Tino ‘ntil his brother acknowledges ‘im.”

“Mm,” she sighed. “My mother won’t talk to Martin – my son, there in the red coat – or my wife. So I know what you mean.”

He drank from his cup of coffee. “How old ‘s he?”

“Fourteen. Awkward age. He’s starting to be interested in girls...”

“’n he’ll know how t’ treat ’em, with two moms.”

Anna looked over at him, and he was glancing over his coffee cup at her. His eyes were a strange bright blue, like the blue on the flag – why did she think of that? It was a weird comparison.

“I suppose you’re right,” she said.  



End file.
